South Africa ponies

[Lady Starflower]

I've never really been too interested in the SA ponies, they are really beautiful and unique but they seem so out of reach for me. But then I started wondering why. Why aren't there many around? I got thinking, I can't really see a factory only making one of each (that seems pointless to me) unless they are hand made?
I tried looking for a spotlight on them but couldn't find one.
Anyway I guess my main question is why are they so impossible to find? If anyone knows.

Also any pics are always fun ; )

[Spectrum]

I personally think, since handing down things from generation to generation is much more common in places like Africa, I think that some of those ponies still have the chance of still being played with / handed down.

Of course, I'm no expert on african societies, just a guess. 

Personally, I'd love a SA Medley, but that'll never happen. xD

[Lady Starflower]

I loveee the SA Moondancer. You could be right about passing down generations.

[nhal039]

It is possible a lot of these toys got damaged. Sorry too but a damper on the subject but there is a lot of fighting and murders in south africa, often after murders take place houses get burnt, this internal fighting has been going on for many decades I personally know many people that have left everything to move to nz due to friends getting killed. I guess in those situations the last thing anyone would care about is a pony

[Lady Starflower]

It is possible a lot of these toys got damaged. Sorry too but a damper on the subject but there is a lot of fighting and murders in south africa, often after murders take place houses get burnt, this internal fighting has been going on for many decades I personally know many people that have left everything to move to nz due to friends getting killed. I guess in those situations the last thing anyone would care about is a pony

Most definitely. Wow living in Canada that certainly wouldn't have been the first thing that came to me but a very good point!

[Hunter-Rose]

As far as I know a lot of the regular ponies were also sold in SA, the exclusive South African ponies could just be oddballs like the UK Princess variants.

[kitkatvintage]

I remember someone had a very small web site a few years ago where she said that she grew up in South Africa & had these ponies as a child. The Hasbro made ponies were sold in stores & these ponies made by another company were sold as a cheaper alternative, much like fakies.

It's possible that people don't see value in these cheaper versions of a more popular older toy, which is why there are very few on the second hand market. Quite a few of the SA ponies in the collecting community were found in lots on ebay or thrift stores in other countries, particularly the UK.

[Lady Starflower]

I remember someone had a very small web site a few years ago where she said that she grew up in South Africa & had these ponies as a child. The Hasbro made ponies were sold in stores & these ponies made by another company were sold as a cheaper alternative, much like fakies.

It's possible that people don't see value in these cheaper versions of a more popular older toy, which is why there are very few on the second hand market. Quite a few of the SA ponies in the collecting community were found in lots on ebay or thrift stores in other countries, particularly the UK.

So they aren't really Hasbro ponies?

[nhal039]

I remember someone had a very small web site a few years ago where she said that she grew up in South Africa & had these ponies as a child. The Hasbro made ponies were sold in stores & these ponies made by another company were sold as a cheaper alternative, much like fakies.

It's possible that people don't see value in these cheaper versions of a more popular older toy, which is why there are very few on the second hand market. Quite a few of the SA ponies in the collecting community were found in lots on ebay or thrift stores in other countries, particularly the UK.

So they aren't really Hasbro ponies?

I didn't think they were hasbro, they have those ugly fake tails that have heaps of holes and one strand of hair comes out of each hole *shudders* 

[Lady Starflower]

I remember someone had a very small web site a few years ago where she said that she grew up in South Africa & had these ponies as a child. The Hasbro made ponies were sold in stores & these ponies made by another company were sold as a cheaper alternative, much like fakies.

It's possible that people don't see value in these cheaper versions of a more popular older toy, which is why there are very few on the second hand market. Quite a few of the SA ponies in the collecting community were found in lots on ebay or thrift stores in other countries, particularly the UK.

So they aren't really Hasbro ponies?

I didn't think they were hasbro, they have those ugly fake tails that have heaps of holes and one strand of hair comes out of each hole *shudders* 

Yeah, I've never seen one in real life but they have rooted tails like manes.

[kitkatvintage]

I remember someone had a very small web site a few years ago where she said that she grew up in South Africa & had these ponies as a child. The Hasbro made ponies were sold in stores & these ponies made by another company were sold as a cheaper alternative, much like fakies.

It's possible that people don't see value in these cheaper versions of a more popular older toy, which is why there are very few on the second hand market. Quite a few of the SA ponies in the collecting community were found in lots on ebay or thrift stores in other countries, particularly the UK.

So they aren't really Hasbro ponies?

No, most Nirvanas aren't made by Hasbro. Each country had their own local toy company that got license to make Hasbro's copyrighted ponies. Argentina ponies are made by Top Toys, Brazil ponies are made by Estrella, Greek ponies are made by El Greco, ect.

The website had an original back card picture with normal MLP artwork, if I remember correctly, so the SA ponies were licensed & produced by a local company.

[Princess-Sparkles]

Wow! This info is freaking awesome.  I think of the baby fakies as baby SA's I saw an interesting fakie that was yellow, in sitting pose and had Windwhistlers symbols. Horrible eyes though, lol.

[kitkatvintage]

Here's the spotlight on the old Arena:
http://www.mlparena.com/Forums/viewtopic/p=1841641.html#1841641

The old site tends to crash for me after a minute or two, so... umm, read quickly?
----
edit to add:
Or I can just copy & paste it before it crashes again. Here's the spotlight originally posted by PinkKittyWinks:

South African Ponies

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*picture pinkkittywinks

Very little is known about South African ponies. This spotlight aims to bring together the little that is known about these rare and strange looking ponies.

Before I begin I would like to say an extra special thank you to Stormy31685 and Kasin for helping me with this spotlight, for answering all my questions and for letting me use their pictures.

I will refer to South African ponies as SA ponies through out the spotlight.

Where are South African ponies from?

South African ponies were sold by Prima Toys, a South African toy company. This company is still going today and is one of the distributors of G3 My Little Pony line in South Africa.

Many Nirvana ponies were made by local toy companies under the name of Hasbro. For example, El Greco produced the Greek ponies, Auriken produced the Mexican NC ponies and DAG produced the Italian ponies. One could say that the SA ponies fit into this category in that the ponies made by a local toy company under Hasbro. However the back card does not state where the ponies were made only the name of the company Prima Toys.

This theory of the ponies being locally made in South Africa doesn't quite fit with the SA ponies' hoof markings. South African ponies' hooves are marked \"made in Hong Kong\". The hoof markings are barely legible but you can still make it out. One could argue that it has been badly blanked out as is the case with some no country ponies.

Another line of thought is that the SA ponies weren't actually licensed. It is possible that a mould was made using a Hong Kong pony and that this mould was used to produce a line of \"My Little Ponys'\". That may explain why they still have the Hong Kong under their feet. *kasin

In conclusion one can see that there is still no concrete evidence that SA ponies were actually made in South Africa.

Were these the only ponies to be sold in South Africa?

As well as the strange SA ponies South Africa is known to have got the NSS Truly and NSS Cupcake as well as a whole host of other regular release ponies. *ladyg

Where have South African ponies been found?

Loose South African ponies have been found in the UK, South Africa, Germany, the Netherlands, Australia and the USA.

Who are the South African ponies?

All the SA ponies which have been found so far are from year 2 and it possible that the whole of the year 2 line was produced and sold. *kasin

Here is an illustrated list of the following variants which have been found so far:

Earth

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Bubbles (yellow with blue hair) *thank you stormy31685

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Applejack (orange with yellow hair) *thank you kasin

Seashell (green with green hair) (this is the only variant of seashell in a standing pose)

Bowtie (dark blue with pink hair) (known to exist but no picture available)

Rainbow

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Sunlight (green with rainbow hair) *picture pinkkittywinks

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Windy (white with rainbow hair)*thank you kasin

Moonstone (no description available) (No picture available)

Pegasus and Unicorn

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Moondancer (white with pink and yellow hair) *thank you louhma

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Medley (yellow with blue hair) *thank you kcat

Playset

Sprinkles (white with red hair) (No picture available)

As one can see most of the SA ponies resemble their HK cousins, however there are others who look completely different. For example, Medley is bright yellow instead of green and Seashell is in a standing pose instead of sitting.


What makes them special?

The Body.

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*thank you kasin

If you look at a SA pony you will notice they look a bit odd. This is because they are made up of different pony body parts! In fact they only ponies that have the matching head and body from the same mould are Moondancer and Medley!

Bubbles, Applejack, Bowtie and Sunlight all have Moondancer�s walking pose body and Firefly's open mouth head!!!

Seashell has a Moonstone's proud pose body and a Firefly open mouth head.

Windy has a Moonstone's head and a Moondancer�s walking pose body.

The plastic body of a SA ponies is VERY hard.

The Hair.
The hair is similar in texture to Brazilian ponies in that it is very fine and frizzes. The hair colours also appear to be unique to SA ponies too (I have yet to find an exact hair match for my SA Sunlight with any other MLP pony) All the SA ponies appear to have long flowing manes that go right down to their hooves and quite a long tail.

The most noticeable and unique feature though is their rooted tail! Instead of having a single tail hole with a tail held together by a washer like all other ponies, they have a stitched tail instead. The tail of a SA pony is rooted in the same way as a pony mane.

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*picture pinkkittywinks

It has also been noticed that some SA ponies shed their hair very easily when brushed and others do not.

Hoof Markings.
South African ponies are all marked �� 83 Hasbro Pat Pend. Hong Kong� the hoof markings are only just legible, compared with a normal Hong Kong pony.

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*picture pinkkittywinks

Hoof markings can be misleading. Mexican, Spanish, Greek and Argentinean ponies can all have no country stamp markings on their feet and it is only by looking at the ponies' features that can one identify their country of origin. Despite being marked Hong Kong it is clear that this is not a normal Hong Kong pony!

As mentioned earlier In this spotlight one could argue that due to the illegibility of the stamp it could have been badly blanked out as is the case with some no country ponies or that the HK stamp was just left or forgotten about.

Eyes
All the South African ponies that have been discovered so far all have blue eyes. The pupil, eyeliner and eye lashes on all known ponies are black. The eyes are very different to Hong Kong eyes which are cleanly printed on. South African pony eyes are very fuzzy looking as if they have been air brushed on. The only ponies that have similar style eyes to a South African pony are Italian ponies with airbrushed eyes.

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HK Sunlight and SA Sunlight eye comparison *picture pinkkittywinks

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SA Sunlight and Italy Minty with airbrushed eyes eye comparison *thank you so silver for Italian Minty with airbrushed eyes

Symbols
The symbol of the SA ponies only resembles their HK cousins in passing. They are printed on in one block colour and are quite small in scale.

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Comparison of SA Sunlight and HK Sunlight's symbols *picture pinkkittywinks

Conclusion

From looking closely at South African ponies, one can see that they are unique in the world of MLP; though they still do bare a passing resemblance to their Hong Kong cousins. There stand out features include their mixed up poses and a rooted tail. Like many Nirvana ponies such as Greek and Mexican ponies it is thought that SA ponies were made by a local toy company under the Hasbro name, however there is still no hard evidence that SA ponies were actually made in South Africa.

Prices
As SA ponies are so few and far between so it is very hard to give a price range. They could sell for anything between $100 and $1000 plus.

Links

Seashell's page
wave.prohosting.com/ka...iePage.htm

My Little Pony Collector
www.mylittleponycollec...ponies.htm

Kasin's SA Pictures
smg.photobucket.com/al...k/African/

[Lady Starflower]

I remember someone had a very small web site a few years ago where she said that she grew up in South Africa & had these ponies as a child. The Hasbro made ponies were sold in stores & these ponies made by another company were sold as a cheaper alternative, much like fakies.

It's possible that people don't see value in these cheaper versions of a more popular older toy, which is why there are very few on the second hand market. Quite a few of the SA ponies in the collecting community were found in lots on ebay or thrift stores in other countries, particularly the UK.

So they aren't really Hasbro ponies?

No, most Nirvanas aren't made by Hasbro. Each country had their own local toy company that got license to make Hasbro's copyrighted ponies. Argentina ponies are made by Top Toys, Brazil ponies are made by Estrella, Greek ponies are made by El Greco, ect.

The website had an original back card picture with normal MLP artwork, if I remember correctly, so the SA ponies were licensed & produced by a local company.

Sorry I meant licensed lol I know the other country ponies were made by different companies but Hasbro licensed them so they fall under the My Little Pony bracket and not fakies. I was just trying to figure out if the SA ones were licensed. Thanks for the explanation this is interesting : )

[Enolaalone]

Wow that was really interesting, I didn't know anything about SA ponies until I looked at this thread. Fascinating. Can't say I particularly want one (there's no Peachy/Snuzzle) but it's still good to share the knowledge about them. Thanks!